Double or Nothing: rewritten
by Mac Gustah
Summary: In a fief on the south-western coast of Araluen, twins are born. When they run into the fief's ranger they start a whole nother chapter in their lives as apprentices of the fabled corps. This is a rewritten version of Double or Nothing. Disclaimer: I do not own RA, it belongs to the grat John Flannagan.


**I thought I would give you a bit of a prologue for this. Thanks to Stormrunner74 for suggesting doing this. It will be a while before more comes, I just wanted to share this with you.**

 **I suggest you listen to** _ **fear not this night**_ **as you read this.**

 **Enjoy.**

~Prologue~

He hated the weather in Toscana, the hot humidity pressed heavily on his breathing and he was sweating buckets. The only thing Edward was happy about on this trip was that they were going back to Araluen, back to that wonderful land, away from the infuriating political games of the Toscan senate.

He glanced at the rider next to him, she wore the same green-grey mottled cloak over her shoulders and the same cowl casting her face in shadows as him. She had a quiver filled with twenty-four deadly arrows on her back and a recurve bow in front of her on the saddle. Her chestnut brown hair dangled out of her hood and he was captivated as the sun reflected off it, giving it a golden hue.

"What are you looking at?" she asked with a playful tone.

"Your pretty face." He answered equally as playful and she let out the most beautiful laugh he had ever heard, making him smile widely at her amusement.

"Sadly I can't say the same." She jabbed.

"Well don't expect any more compliments then." He said with mock hurt and she quickly turned her puppy eyes at him.

"Awwwww, please Eddie?"

"Alright, you're beautiful. Happy now?"

"Very."

They snapped back to their more professional sides when they heard something, it was a quiet _twang_ , but to two highly trained rangers, it could just as well have been a galloping warhorse. They saw one of the Toscan guards slump off his horse, an arrow lodged in his throat and immediately raised their bows and nocked an arrow. They scanned the treeline, this was a very good place or an ambush, a cliff on one side and a mountain range on the other.

Soldiers scurried around them as they got in position. Several more fell to arrows from the forest and the two rangers quickly dismounted, they were too big of a target on their horses.

"Ann, see if you can sneak around their lines and take out the archers, I will deal with the others!" he said as he fired another arrow and a sword wielding ambusher fell to the ground with a white fletched arrow where is eye used to be and she quickly crept away.

He saw one of the Araluen knights stabbing an assaulter through the chest as another approached him from behind. He nocked another arrow and swiftly took care of him, earning him a thankful nod from the knight.

By that point attackers were streaming out of the forest and they were being overwhelmed. He had shot twenty arrows and had the same amount of kills. He was down to his last four when he heard a scream, he knew that voice. _ANN!_

She was fighting with her knives and a small pile of bodies was plied up at her feet. He fired his last arrows in quick succession and four men fell to the ground without ever knowing what killed them. It was of no use though, there were too many of them and the love of his life was backed up all the way to the cliff face. He dropped his bow and drew his knives while sprinting to her location a bit further down the road.

He didn't care if he was wounded, he had to get to her. He ducked under a clumsy swing of a sword and stabbed its wielder in the stomach. Another swing, another dead attacker. He spurted forward, stabbing, slashing and blocking in a flurry of motion. He took another three down as he broke through the crowd of bandits just in time to see a man holding his love over the edge of the cliff. She looked at him one last time and smiled sadly, after which her golden brown eyes hardened and the man dropped her.

He screamed, it was a savage scream, one more akin that of a wounded beast than a man as he stormed forward to the man and threw his knife. The deadly projectile hit him square in the chest and he looked down for a second before he too toppled off the edge. His eyes teared shut, his emotion took over from his rationality and he stormed back into the group.

Some subconsciously took a step back when they saw the pure uncontrolled rage in his eyes. His cloak was torn and bloodied, there was blood on his face, there was blood everywhere. He was an uncontrollable force, but eventually he tired and one got a hit off with his mace. He heard his ribs crack at the force and fell down to the ground wheezing for breath as he coughed up blood.

Out of nowhere though, a sword cleaved through the man that was standing over him and the knight he had saved earlier appeared in his sight, his chainmail and his orange and blue surcoat bloodied and he was bleeding from a few cuts on his face. The greathelm he had been wearing earlier had been discarded and Ed nodded at him before everything became a blur and the edge of his vision became black and spread across as he finally gave in to the sweet embrace of unconsciousness.

He looked at his former master who put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Everyone was there, even though there wasn't a body to bury. He had scoured the bottom of the cliff for days after he woke up and he couldn't find her. All he found was her silver oak leaf, scratched and dirty. He had frantically continued searching with the hope she might have been alive, that he might find her sitting there, waiting for him to get her, but he had no such luck.

It was his fault she was dead. He had sent her to eliminate the archers, it was his idea. He had no right to be alive, it should have been him there, he should have fallen, not her. He couldn't even cry for it anymore, no, he has spent his tears in Toscana and he would find out who exactly sent those men after them. But he couldn't, he couldn't just leave Araluen, he had a duty to the corps, he had sworn an oath and he would keep that oath. He knew what had happened to Will when he lost Alyss, he wouldn't let the same happen to him.

Slowly people started to leave. He and a few stayed the longest, but eventually they too started to go, hugging him or clasping his shoulder as they did so. He didn't even register.

And so it was that in the middle of a glade, under the light of the moon, a man stood in sorrow in front of a white gravestone under a large birch tree. There were no tears, no screams, just silent sorrow as the night turned to day and he finally left.

 **I hope you liked this, more will come later.**

 **Bye, or as they say in Greece:** **αντίο** **.**


End file.
